10 minute read
Drawing on Personal Battle
Honors student uses cancer diagnosis and treatment to inform and motivate others
by Robin E. Lee
When he was a 17-year-old high school student, Elijah Blank learned that he had acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). After receiving that diagnosis Dec. 23, 2021, he missed attending several months of his junior year in person while receiving homebound care.
“It was weird going back to class,” he recalled. “I felt like a dead man walking because I was bald, and my face was rounder from the steroids.”
While Blank was glad to finally know the cause of the fatigue, fever, night sweats, and other symptoms that had come on suddenly and lasted for more than a month, he admits it was difficult to come to terms with initially.
“I had always been so socially involved, and now, I stared down the barrel of seemingly ceaseless treatment, where my only human interaction would arrive every six hours, neatly packaged in momentary awkward small talk as my vitals were monitored,” he said. “When I started going back to class, people seemed afraid to ask personal questions, and they even told me they were scared I was going to die.”
Ever resilient, Blank says an unexpected hope emerged when he started receiving interim maintenance chemotherapy, a new stage of his ALL treatment.
“I regained some of my strength, which went a long way for me both mentally and physically,” he said. He was able to complete nine Advanced Placement and dual credit courses during his senior year.
Blank continued his chemo as a college freshman last year, finishing his last monthly treatment on April 14. Now a sophomore Honors student at MTSU, with a double major in Biochemistry and Physics, he plans to pursue M.D. and Ph.D. degrees and become a physician.
Lifelong Friendship
Blank’s fortitude shines through as he recollects what it was like to lose contact with people while going through the process, and he cherishes those he remains in contact with. “I remind myself of the fear that I used to feel and how far beyond that I have grown. And, with the right support, nothing will ever come close to holding me back again.”
One such relationship is with his friend Matthew Feragola, his freshman roommate at MTSU. They have known each other since sixth grade.
“At first, we got on each other’s nerves. The first thing I noticed was that he was academically gifted, like me, just in different areas,” said Feragola, who described Blank as a “terrible genius” in math and science. “He would seek out information and learning on his own and often teach things to himself before he took the class.”
The pair stuck together on field trips and bonded over music. While Feragola admits they butted heads a lot in middle school, by the first year of high school they had become inseparable, spending every weekend at each other’s houses.
“I found out about his illness when I was driving home from school one day. I was at the intersection of Old Fort and Broad when he called and said the doctors believed he had a weird form of anemia, but Elijah thought he had leukemia,” Feragola said. “The doctors did more research, and he got the results immediately before Christmas.”
When I started going back to class, people seemed afraid to ask personal questions, and they even told me they were scared I was going to die.
Blank decided to shave his head the day after Christmas and say goodbye to his friends because he would be starting treatment in the new year.
“My family had plans to visit my great grandmother over that time,” Feragola said, “and I was really sad that I wasn’t going to be able to see Elijah and say goodbye. We got to her house and learned that she had the flu, so we didn’t even get to visit with her; we just came back. The whole trip was for nothing, and I didn’t get to see him either.
“I knew that what he had was survivable, but I felt like I was going to lose him one way or another. I felt like he wasn’t going to be the same when he came back.”
Frustration And Isolation
When he was first diagnosed, Blank made the choice to shave his head. “Every stage of hair loss is different,” he said. “But now that it grows, I don’t want to cut it.”
Beyond hair, Blank’s journey has come with several other causes of frustration.
“I detest the idea that this thing I hate about myself has become my opening line in every introduction, but how can I keep my mouth shut on an issue so personal to me?” Blank questioned.
Many people cannot imagine what it is like to agonize through cancer treatment, let alone while also dealing with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the immunosuppressant nature of ALL and Blank’s treatment, he was rightly concerned about returning to class and completing his junior and senior years among his peers.
The initial three months of treatment began with two weeks in the hospital, then not being able to visit with anyone when he first arrived home. Later, Blank would endure full days of chemo followed by 48 hours of saline and being monitored.
“He would come home and be so fatigued, constant no energy, and he was still trying to keep up with schoolwork from home,” said Feragola, who himself suffers from Hashimoto’s disease, a life-threatening condition, as well as autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder. “We watch out for each other and ensure we take care of ourselves and each other.”
Blank did keep up. By March, he was back at school, having driven himself a half hour to get there. The academic achiever set his sights on attending MTSU after graduation.
Before, I wanted to go to pharmacy school; now, that's not enough.
Empowering And Educating
In April 2023, Feragola received a scary 3 a.m. wakeup call from Blank and had to rush him to the hospital.
“When I answered the phone, he was wheezing and saying he couldn’t breathe. His parents both leave for work early, and they were already gone at the time,” Feragola recounted. “I lived about five minutes away.”
At Vanderbilt, Blank was diagnosed with parainfluenza, which normally causes minor respiratory symptoms but can kill someone who is immunocompromised. He spent the night in the hospital.
“That was a moment when we realized that being roommates would be a good idea,” Feragola said.
Blank has been able to turn his experience into something positive, focusing his high school thesis at Rutherford County’s Central Magnet School on pediatric cancer and his own firsthand experiences. He presented this thesis last spring at the Tennessee Collegiate Honors Council conference.
“I conducted surveys of pediatric cancer knowledge and found that many underestimated the survival rate. Education is important; the lack of education causes fear and makes it difficult to maintain relationships,” Blank said.
Delving into the world of cancer advocacy, Blank researched the profound impact of misinformation on patients and their families. “My research in high school quickly evolved into a greater mission to combat misinformation in the broader community.”
True Blue Grit
Blank planned to take 18 credit hours his first semester at MTSU, but Feragola convinced him to drop one of the classes and ease into college life. He took 18 hours in the spring, though.
“He has always been extremely ambitious, always trying to challenge himself. He tried to triple major, but the Pell Grant would not cover it, so he is humbly sticking with a double major of Biochemistry and Physics, with straight As,” Feragola joked.
Biology Department Chair Dennis Mullen, who has taught Blank in two Honors Biology courses, said he asked for no special accommodations as allowed—and didn’t fall behind while missing a class or two for doctor appointments. “Elijah is a very bright young man. He enjoys learning and being challenged,” Mullen said.
His friend admits Blank was always a little loopy on the days he received his treatments. “It’s a testament to how strong he is, how far he’s come, and how far he’ll go,” Feragola said.
“Two years is so long. It sounds like nothing at first; now we are here. I can’t imagine if his life had been cut short, how different everything would have been,” he said.
“Now, his hair has grown back in wonderful curls, and he is still eager to learn. A few nights ago, when I returned home from work, he was working in a textbook that he got for himself, and he was excited because he finally got to something he didn’t already know.”
The devoted friends now share honest feedback with each other. Feragola wrote something to Blank that made him tear up. “He didn’t see what he was going through as traumatizing; he just thought about it as a thing that happens. When he understood the impact of what he was going through and what he had been blocking out, it was a little bit of turning point for him and helped him come to terms with what he was experiencing.”
This level of compassion and understanding inspired Blank’s high school thesis.
“During the initial stages of his recovery, people he was once close to disappeared,” Feragola said. “Some may have felt too emotional about what was going on. While others did the opposite, and it felt like they were making his illness about themselves. People can act strangely about illness and death.”
New Chapter
Blank said he chose MTSU because of the state-of-theart Science Building, scholarship opportunities, and its proximity to Vanderbilt Pediatric Oncology, which he called “one of the best in the nation.”
“General knowledge of, and treatment for, pediatric cancer has improved drastically,” he said.
There are more than 100 kinds of cancer. The five-year relative survival rate for leukemia has improved from only 34% in 1975 to about 84% currently, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital Health Library. Currently active at MTSU in the Biology and Chemistry clubs, and as a calculus tutor, Blank said he was always interested in the medical field, even before his diagnosis.
“Before, I wanted to go to pharmacy school; now, that’s not enough,” said Blank, who is considering specializing in neurology, neurosurgery, or psychiatry. He is interested in studying psychiatric treatments and looking beyond traditional methods of treatment to help people.
His summer involved plans to work at a rehab center and help serve an unfortunately stigmatized population. “I have a friend who has gone through rehab for drug use, and I have been around people who went through Narcotics Anonymous.”
Following his final chemotherapy appointment, he celebrated by planning a trip with friends to Mexico.
“My life expectancy has decreased by six to 11 years, but I am as close to being cured as you can be,” Blank said.
“As I recovered, my mother and I began to hike regularly, an excursion we still maintain. As I continue to recover, I would like to run more. But most of all, I can’t wait to become a doctor and discover techniques to help others.”
